Samuel Butler (novelist) Quotes

313 Sourced Quotes

Thought pure and simple is as near to God as we can get; it is through this that we are linked with God.

Samuel Butler
We meet people every day whose bodies are evidently those of men and women long dead, but whose appearance we know through their portraits.

Samuel Butler
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Samuel Butler
For Justice, though she's painted blind,
Is to the weaker side inclin'd.

Samuel Butler
We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not? I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Samuel Butler
Oaths are but words, and words but wind,
Too feeble instruments to bind.

Samuel Butler
If people like being deceived — and this can hardly be doubted — there can rarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the wish than now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in trying to gratify the public.

Samuel Butler
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.

Samuel Butler
It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

Samuel Butler
The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived.

Samuel Butler
Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so.

Samuel Butler
He [the Philosopher] should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin of his teeth, for the skin of one's teeth is the most teaching thing about one. He should have been, or at any rate believed himself, a great fool and a great criminal. He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet not be without society.

Samuel Butler
The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeares are not the greatest — they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is ineffable — it must be felt from one person to another, it cannot be articulated.

Samuel Butler
There are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.

Samuel Butler
There is nothing less powerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of application. That is why what little knowledge I have has done myself personally so much harm. I do not know much, but if I knew a good deal less than that little I should be far more powerful.

Samuel Butler
Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again
Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

Samuel Butler
Whether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether it is an inflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is another matter. If people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable certainty for everything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on the credit of the bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind it all to stand so great a drain even on so great a reserve?

Samuel Butler
The phrase "unconscious humor" is the one contribution I have made to the current literature of the day.

Samuel Butler
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

Samuel Butler
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

Samuel Butler
An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

Samuel Butler
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Samuel Butler
If it tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong.

Samuel Butler
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Samuel Butler
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

Samuel Butler
They say the test of this [literary power] is whether a man can write an inscription. I say Can he name a kitten? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.

Samuel Butler
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearances only.

Samuel Butler
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

Samuel Butler
The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well.

Samuel Butler
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

Samuel Butler